Category Archives: Oklahoma

Tornado hits New Orleans causing damage, power outages and reports of one death

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Tornado occurred as major storm system tore through parts of the US south, killing another person in Texas and injuring more than two dozen

A large tornado touched down in New Orleans on Tuesday evening, causing damage and destruction to the city’s lower ninth ward, before traveling east into the neighboring parish of St Bernard, where officials reported multiple injuries and one death.

The tornado occurred as a major storm system continued to tear through parts of the US south, killing another person in Texas and injuring more than two dozen.

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Texas wildfires: approaching storm could bring rain but also high winds

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Fires have caused two deaths, including one in Oklahoma, as largest blaze is 30% contained after burning nearly 85 square miles

Wildfires continued to scorch parts of Texas on Monday while a storm system moving through could bring much-needed rain but also strong winds, forecasters said.

The Eastland Complex, which comprises several fires in one place, had burned nearly 85 square miles in an area about 120 miles west of Dallas and was 30% contained as of Monday morning.

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Oklahoma pastor faces criticism for rubbing spit on parishioner’s face

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Michael Todd spat into his hand twice, and audience gasped when he rubbed his hands on his brother’s face

A pastor from a megachurch in Tulsa, Oklahoma, faced a wave of criticism online over video of him rubbing spit on a worshipper’s face.

During a sermon on Sunday, Michael Todd, a 34-year-old lead pastor at Transformation church, spat into his hand twice.

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‘The testing ground’: how Republican state parties grow Trumpism 2.0

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In Oklahoma, Idaho, Wyoming and California, the next generation of GOP extremists are passing laws, picking their own voters … and preparing for power

The website of the Oklahoma Republican party has a running countdown to the 2024 presidential election measured in “Maga days”, “Maga hours”, “Maga minutes” and “Maga seconds” – Maga being shorthand for Donald Trump’s timeworn slogan, “Make America great again”.

The state party chairman, John Bennett, a veteran of three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, has described Islam as a “cancer in our nation that needs to be cut out” and posted a yellow Star of David on Facebook to liken coronavirus vaccine mandates to the persecution of Jewish people in Nazi Germany.

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Protesters react with joy as governor grants Julius Jones clemency – video

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Supporters of Julius Jones celebrated outside Oklahoma’s capitol building as news broke that the governor of Oklahoma had granted clemency to the death row inmate, hours before he was due to be executed. Protesters had gathered to demand the state commute Jones’s death sentence to life imprisonment. Jones has been on death row since he was convicted of the murder of businessman Paul Howell in 1999. He has always maintained his innocence

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Protests mount as Oklahoma prepares to execute Julius Jones

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Jones, who has maintained his innocence for more than two decades, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection on Thursday

Students at high schools across Oklahoma City walked out of their classes. Prayer vigils were held at the state Capitol, and barricades were erected outside the governor’s mansion. Even Baker Mayfield, quarterback for the NFL’s Cleveland Browns, weighed in on Oklahoma’s highest-profile execution in decades.

Julius Jones, 41, who has maintained his innocence for more than two decades, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection on Thursday at the state penitentiary in McAlester for the 1999 slaying of Paul Howell, a businessman in the affluent Oklahoma City suburb of Edmond.

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Tulsa race massacre: 19 bodies reinterred as protesters demand criminal investigation

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  • Bullet found with one set of remains that showed trauma
  • Anthropologist tells crowd: ‘We are not done’

The bodies of 19 people exhumed from an Oklahoma cemetery during a search for victims of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre were reburied in a closed ceremony on Friday, despite objections from protesters outside the cemetery.

Related: ‘I work with the dead. But this can help the living’: the anthropologist investigating the Tulsa race massacre

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‘Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around’: reverend sings with Tulsa race massacre survivors – video

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Rev Dr William J Barber II sang 'Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around' with the three living survivors of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre at the Greenwood Cultural Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Tuesday, after Joe Biden gave a speech honouring the anniversary. Biden became the first sitting US president to visit the site where hundreds of Black Americans were massacred by a white mob in 1921, as he marked the country's legacy of racial violence

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‘This was a massacre’: Biden honours Tulsa race massacre survivors 100 years on – video

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Joe Biden on Tuesday became the first sitting US president to visit the site in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where hundreds of Black Americans were massacred by a white mob in 1921, as he marked the country’s legacy of racial violence. 

Biden oversaw a moment of silence for the victims after meeting with three people who lived in the district during the massacre: Viola Fletcher, Hughes Van Ellis and Lessie Benningfield Randle. 

Now between the ages of 101 and 107, the survivors who met Biden asked Congress for ‘justice’ this year and are parties to a lawsuit against state and local officials seeking several remedies for the massacre, including a victim compensation fund

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‘The loss is incalculable’: Descendants of the Tulsa massacre on what was stolen from them

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For many descendants, the past is still present. They explain how the legacy of the massacre, which was suppressed for so long, lives on today

Earlier this month, the three known survivors of the 1921 Tulsa massacre testified in Congress about the world they lost when a white mob burned their thriving community to the ground. “The neighborhood I fell asleep in that night was rich – not just in terms of wealth, but in culture, community and heritage,” said Viola Fletcher, who was visiting the US capital for the first time in her 107 years. “Within a few hours, all of that was gone.”

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‘They didn’t talk about it’: how a historian helped Tulsa confront the horror of its past

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In 1921, a white mob attacked Tulsa’s Black Wall Street, killing an estimated 300 people, but it wasn’t talked about until recently

There was no memorial to it in town. Teachers made no mention of it, not even during a half-semester devoted to local history. The white schoolboy Scott Ellsworth of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was left to wonder what the city’s darkest secret could be.

Related: The Ground Breaking review: indispensable history of the Tulsa Race Massacre

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High school announcer caught by hot mic blames racist outburst on high blood sugar

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  • Announcer used racial slur for girls’ team who knelt for anthem
  • Incident happened before Oklahoma high school playoff game
  • Broadcaster blames racist comments on diabetes in statement

An announcer for a live stream of an Oklahoma girls’ high school basketball game cursed and called one team by a racial epithet as the players knelt during the national anthem, then suggested his diabetes was to blame for the episode in a statement expressing his regret.

The incident occurred Thursday before the Norman High School-Midwest City quarter-final game in Sapulpa as the Star-Spangled Banner began to play. The broadcasters told their listeners on the NFHS Network stream they would return after a break and then one, apparently not realizing the audio was still live, used an expletive and the epithet as the Norman players knelt.

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New owners of Tiger King zoo ordered to turn over lion and tiger cubs

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Judge orders Oklahoma zoo featured in hit Netflix series to surrender cats and their mothers for violating animal welfare laws

A federal judge in Oklahoma has ordered the new owners of an Oklahoma zoo featured in Netflix’s Tiger King documentary to turn over all the lion and tiger cubs in their possession, along with the animals’ mothers, to the federal government.

Related: 'It's pretty messed up': Americans’ deadly love for tigers

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Woman, 105, leads lawsuit seeking reparations for 1921 Tulsa massacre

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  • Historians estimate as many as 300 black people were killed
  • Suit alleges massacre responsible for inequality in Tulsa today

A group of Oklahomans, led by 105-year-old woman, filed a lawsuit on Tuesday demanding reparations for the 1921 Tulsa race massacre which saw white mobs burn down a thriving black neighborhood and kill hundreds of people.

Related: Trump rally in Tulsa spurs renewed call for 1921 racial massacre reparations

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Donald Trump sows division and promises ‘greatness’ at Tulsa rally flop

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US president’s much hyped return turned to humiliation when he failed to fill arena in Republican stronghold of Oklahoma

Donald Trump declared “the silent majority is stronger than ever before” at his comeback rally on Saturday, but thousands of empty seats appeared to tell a different story.

The US president’s much hyped return to the campaign trail turned to humiliation when he failed to fill a 19,000-capacity arena in the Republican stronghold of Oklahoma, raising fresh doubts about his chances of winning re-election.

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Trump set for Tulsa rally amid coronavirus fears and as protests continue – live

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It has been seven weeks since Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis took a coronavirus “victory lap”, pressing ahead with a swift reopening program while berating the media for a “doom and gloom” approach he said bore little relation to reality.

“We haven’t seen an explosion of new cases,” DeSantis insisted during a 29 April news conference, a day on which the state’s Covid-19 tally increased by 347.

Robert Mueller and his investigators thought it possible Donald Trump lied to them about conversations with Roger Stone, according to previously redacted sections of the special counsel’s report which were were released on Friday night.

The release, part of litigation over portions of Mueller’s findings which remain secret, was largely overshadowed by US attorney general William Barr’s announcement of the resignation of the attorney for the southern district of New York, Geoffrey Berman, who then denied he was stepping down.

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Tulsa braces for Trump’s ‘wild evening’ amid unrest and coronavirus fears

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Donald Trump threatens protesters and ‘lowlifes’ as mass rally draws outrage from black communities with counter rallies expected

The city of Tulsa, Oklahoma is braced for Donald Trump’s first campaign rally since the coronavirus pandemic struck the United States, claiming more than 118,000 lives so far, plunging the economy into recession, and leading to widespread criticism of the president’s botched response to a crisis that has seen his approval ratings tank in recent polls.

The indoor rally, at Tulsa’s 19,000-person capacity BOK Center, comes as the city and the state of Oklahoma experience a surge in Covid-19 cases and local public health officials urge the campaign to reschedule the event over fears that the close contact between attendees – who will not be forced to wear face masks – could lead to more deaths.

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On eve of Trump visit, Tulsa still haunted by memory of white supremacist massacre

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The president prepares to hold a rally in a city where, in 1921, up to 300 people were murdered in one of the most horrific acts of racist violence in US history

Brenda Alford stood at the spot where her grandfather’s business was burned to the ground.

Related: Why is Trump's comeback rally in Tulsa: the site of a massacre?

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Global report: six US states report most ever new coronavirus cases

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More cases in Beijing outbreak; Brazil suffers worst ever day; New Zealand prime minister voices anger over quarantine fiasco

New coronavirus infections have soared to record highs in six American states, marking a rising tide of cases for a second consecutive week as authorities in Beijing said another 31 people had been infected in a fresh outbreak in China.

Arizona, Florida, Oklahoma, Oregon and Texas all reported their most ever new cases on Tuesday after all-time highs last week and as they continued to reopen their economies. Nevada also reported its highest single-day tally of new cases on Tuesday, up from a previous high on 23 May.

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